Posted mainly as a gift to my friend Rob S, but also as an offering to any architecture students who happen to Google for RIBA Part 3 Management Papers, I give you my own paper from last year’s exam (PDF link).
- Warning A: If you are not an architecture student taking your part 3 exam, this will not be of any interest, move on.
- Warning B: If you are an architecture student and you choose to use it as inspiration, be sure to make a decision about whether or not humour has a place in an exam that will be the culmination of 7 years of study.
My paper flies dangerously close to the sun in terms of its funny/straight ratio. I got lucky; my examiner had a sense of humour and he enjoyed it. Yours may not, in which case your wings will quickly melt during the final interview. I’d been reading Arthur Koestler at the time and he reassured me that wit was a conduit for creative thinking. He’s dead right, I got a good mark.